1. Preheat the oven to 190C or 175C with fan. Sit six sturdy cupcake liners on a tray and spray the insides of them lightly with oil. Alternatively, use a friand pan or muffin pan.

2. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, icing sugar and almond meal. I’ve found that sifting all three results in a lighter texture, but if you’re feeling lazy, just sift the icing sugar and stir it together with the flour and almond meal.

3. In a separate mixing bowl and using a hand whisk, beat the egg whites for about a minute until they’re frothy, but not stiff.

4. Quickly but gently fold in the dry ingredients, then add the cooled melted butter. Stir until just combined.

5. Reserve six raspberries, then add the remaining raspberries and chocolate and stir very gently into the batter – you don’t want to break all the raspberries up.

6. Spoon the mixture evenly into the six paper liners and then top each with a reserved raspberry. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes, rotating the tray once during the baking time. The finished friands will be well risen and golden brown in colour.

7. Allow to cool on a wire rack before serving with a hot cup of tea!

. . . . .

And…waste not, want not…turn the four leftover egg yolks into custard in just a few minutes in the microwave! I posted this original recipe a couple of years ago, but here it is again, this time using all milk instead of milk and cream:

* Instead of the extract and caster sugar, I used vanilla sugar this time.

1. In a large pyrex mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, extract, cornflour and caster sugar until smooth. Microwave on high for 2 minutes until hot (my microwave is 1100 watts).

2. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Pour the egg yolks through a sieve into the bowl of heated milk, whisking constantly as it ribbons into the hot mixture to ensure it doesn’t curdle.

3. Heat the eggy milk in the microwave on high for 1 minute, then whisk. Heat for another 30 seconds, then whisk again. Continue heating in 30 seconds bursts, whisking well after each, until the custard has thickened to your liking. Use immediately, or refrigerate until needed, with a piece of clingfilm pressed to the surface to stop it skinning.

I kinda thought they were just muffins (rather good looking muffins) but knowing you and reading the recipe I see the difference. Now I know about friands so will need to taste them. Hope to try it soon!

Amanda, thanks! Looks like we all couldn’t resist the gorgeous paper cups! I had a look today at the Robert Gordon site (http://robertgordonaustralia.com/) and they had a dozen different designs! Must…resist… ;-)

Claire, the paper cups were irresistible, weren’t they? Even to me, who doesn’t like cupcakes. I’m so happy to have found a use for them. How do you go with freezing egg yolks? I’ve frozen whites, but never yolks – do you whip them up first? Thanks…

I’ve just printed of the Friand recipe – they look delish with raspberries!
Today is an “at home day” so I’m making Maggie Beer’s
Lemon tartlettes in her sour dough pastry cases! This will be my first attempt at her pastry so I’m hoping it turns out just beautifully.

Love love love friands, I even have a friand tray, but I’m yet to find the perfect recipe so I’ll try yours soon, Writers Festival this w/e so no baking…and no we didn’t make it to Marrickville as T had his heart set on Harkola…which he loved!

I don’t know if you remember, my darling, but I had my very first friand with you. We were watching Sat morning sport, and you bought me one at the school canteen. :) So glad T loved Harkola – how much halva did he buy? Hahaha…

Friands, cupcakes, muffins – I LOVE them all. Think it’s the individual portion thing that really does it for me.
Celia what a fabulous recipe, I love the raspberry and chocolate combo and your custard is perfectly speckled with vanilla seeds.
:-) Mandy

Hehe it’s friand time! And you’ve worn yours out? Here am I buying my first friand tin! I always thought that it was one f those tins that you would never use-but clearly not! :P And you don’t like cupcakes? I’m going to have to forget you ever said that ;) :P

I’ve never heard of “Friands” At first I thought it was a typo and you where talking about friends.

Whatever you call them, I want one. And I don’t care for cupcakes either. Right behind fruitcake and jello, they are my least favorite dessert. I’ll take a nice piece of pie, a cookie or some hot pudding any day.

This is the Dredgemeisters boys here. T and J were just dared to try the custard. J said, “Mummy I don’t yike it.” T said “devine.” and then he said “yeah baby.” This from a boy who has rejected his great grandmother’s fabulous custard for years. Passed down thru the generations only to halt in the face of fjalc’s superior offering. Oh well …

These look wonderful Celia! Never heard of friands before. I’d love to try these. Do you make your own almond meal or do you buy it in a bag? I just happen to have some frozen raspberries and some dark chocolate in the cupboard screaming to be used. Thank you for educating me re: another unheard of culinary delight!

Your dialogue with Big boy (int he sidebar on Grace) made me laugh….not only giggle. I love Friands – I always think of them as the fail-safe/guaranteed option to making macarons as they have a similar ingredient list! And the cupcake liners are cute. Have a blessed weekend.

I’ll tell you a secret… cupcakes aren’t my favourite either! They are so often a case of style over substance, and soooo sweet. They can look amazing, and there in lies their beauty, buuuut… friands are definately my cup of tea!

I read some of the comments and they can certainly be made perfectly with hazlenut meal, and are even nicer. And egg yolks can be frozen, but need to be stablized with something- usually sugar. So I mix up a few with a couple of tablespoons, lable and freeze. But why bother when you can make this yummy custard instead?

Becca, thank you – good to know they work even better with hazelnut meal! And also for the tip on how to freeze egg yolks – after all, there really is only so much custard one can eat. :) We often use up egg yolks to make shortbread freezer cookie dough as well (recipe is on the Cakes and Cookies page).

These look gorgeous Celia and what a wonderful combination of raspberries and chocolate too. I have yet to make friands – it’s the what to do with all the egg yolks (and if you don’t want custard) that partially puts me off. But they are on my list. I like the name which I keep mistaking for friends. I’m a bit shocked by your cupcake confession though.

Choc, yes, a couple of friends (not friands) are appalled at my lack of cupcake love. In my defense, I’m married to a staunch anti-cupcake campaigner, so they’re rarely made here anyway. I think I did make them once a couple of years ago, although that was the last time!

While I think these friands look delectable I’m really taken with the microwave custard! I’ll be trying this very soon as I have only occasionally made custard from scratch with mixed results. Thanks for reposting the recipe.

Hi Celia,
I just came back to this to get your custard recipe again and noticed your question. To be completely honest they’re all still in the freezer! I freeze individual yolks in ice cube trays. When I finally do something with them I’ll let you know how it goes.

Celia, I too have ‘come back’ to tell you that I finally got around to making the friands yesterday and can thoroughly recommend them to everyone, they are delicious! I used the original recipe to make them, ie. topping them with frozen blueberries and I used my new friand silicone mould which I found in a local kitchen shop, couldn’t believe my luck! I will definitely be making these again, what a lovely way to use up all those egg whites left over from making ice-cream.

[…] Muffins from Good Food: 101 Cakes and Bakes are filling though not as luxurious as these friands from Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. Since HoneyB was helping, she deemed it very necessary to […]

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